Dear Shae!

I meant to write this post a LONG time ago, but OOPS! I forgot. :)

So, here's the "infamous" bread recipe I was talking about. It's from my sweet visiting teacher.


Facts: 
• makes 5 loaves of bread
• 350 degrees for about 30 minutes
• needs LOTS of lovin' -- like smiles, kind words, and perhaps a random song. :)


Ingredients (with some partial directions):
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup oil (canola)
• 2 tb yeast (instant)
• 5.25 cups warm water

•••••• Mix the above ingredients (I use the bread attachments to my hand mixer. I was told to mix for 1 minute if you have a Bosch/KitchenAid) ••••••


Then mix in these ingredients: 

• 2 tb salt
• 9.5 cups white flour (if you're doing part white, part whole wheat, here are the proportions: 5 cups white, 4.5 cups wheat)



Final steps: 
• Knead 8 minutes (on Bosch/KitchenAid)... Umm, I kind of-ish skipped this step because my handmixer did it for me as I was adding all the ingredients. There are a few definite advantages to not having lots of dinero. :)
• Raise (or is it rise? Time to look up transitive vs. intransitive again. Arrrr.) in greased bowl until doubles.  (But I just separate the dough into the 5 bread pans (first spraying the bottom of pans with Pam), and cover until they double. If you're in a REAL time crunch, you can turn your oven onto a LOW heat (as in you can touch the racks in the oven and you don't burn your hands... maybe around 110 degrees?), and let them raise/rise that way.
• Cook for 30-ish minutes (350 degrees) until golden brown. (The test to doneness: when the bread looks good on top, take a loaf out, and inspect the bottom of loaves. They should be golden brown, too (but nowhere NEAR as golden brown as the top).


Anyway, Shae. My kids miss their Black Auntie. :) Come up and visit us, will you??!! We've only met our black lil' nephew once!! Hehe!!!!